5x5 Public Space Presentation
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A graduate course presentation drawing on John R. Parkinson's book Democracy & Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance
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5x5 Public Space Presentation
- 1. “Theorizing Public Space” A 5x5 presentation on John R. Parkinson‟s Democracy & Public Space
- 2. What is public? What is private? John Dewey’s definition of public: “…all those who are affected by the indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is deemed necessary to have these consequences systematically cared for”(p. 50) Parkinson (2012)’s concept of private: • “…a private sphere of activity that is the „locus of initiative‟ in which free individuals makes autonomous decisions…”(p.50)
- 3. The characteristics of public 1. “Freely accessible places where ‘everything that happens can be observed by anyone’, where strangers are encountered whether one wants to or not, because everyone has free right of entry (Geuss, 2001: 52)… 2. The things that concern, affect, or are for the benefit of everyone, Arendt’s second sense of ‘public’ (1958: 52). This realm includes ‘common goods’ (Hardin, 1968), goods like clean air and water, public transport, and so on… 3. The people or groups that have responsibility for that realm covered in (2), which might include rulers, or ‘public figures’, or might be defined more broadly to mean all of us: ‘the public’ as a noun, not an adjective. 4. Things which are owned by the state or the people in (3) and paid for out of collective resources like taxes: government buildings, national parks in most countries, military bases and equipment, and so on.” (Parkinson, 2012. p. 51)
- 4. Key concepts Issue of “liminal spaces” – between private and public; area of conflict Principle of civil inattention or disattendability Scripts for encountering others in public The socially constructed elements of physical space
- 5. Considerations What are the „scripts‟ that are being „written‟ for Lisgar Park? How we can influence or change these? How can we work to overcome the principle of civil inattention or disattendability? What are the democratic implications of public space in Toronto?
Editor's Notes
- I’m going to talk about Chapter three of the Parkinson book. I’ve picked this reading because I’m interested in the implications of how our physical environment affects ideologies such as democracy and the ideals that it stands for – such as free speech and freedom of peaceful assembly. These issues are all the more pressing for me because of the Occupy protests that happened a few years ago and my interest in digital advocacy. I want to better understand the relationship between the virtual and real worlds, between democratic ideals and protest in action.However, that’s is a bit of an aside. What I’m going to do here is present some of Parkinson’s key ideas, and how they relate to our case study, Lisgar Park.
- Although Parkinson acknowledges that the public/private divide is constitutive of democracy, he immediately problematizes this concept. While most people have hard and fast definitions in mind when these concepts are discussed, Parkinson begins with a quote from Geuss asking why we make this distinction, and for what purpose.He asserts that the public/private split is a normative conception.Appealing to the private or public nature of something is an appeal to the values that are ascribed to the conceptParkinson rejects the concept of ownership as providing a definitive answer to the issue; points to issues like clean air. Air space is divided, yet it really belongs to all.
- He then goes on to create a definition of four kinds of public space… I found this interesting because my conceptualization of public space was much more general and this helped me focus.In particular, this definition corresponds in a way to our facets of inquiry by connecting the ideas of public space with governance in number 3; what is the role of the public versus public figures? I think this is something we’ll want to explore when we get to that facet.I was also interested to read, briefly about Arendt’s threefold conception: of private, social, public. although further research reveals that she actually includes a fourth category as well.
- Now we get the most important aspects of the reading; for me, these four ideas add the most to our case study and kit – a richness of thought that will be crucial in making this project come to life.Beginning with the first, the idea of liminal space. Parkinson only briefly touches on this, but he notes that the in-between spaces are those that are most contentious. And although Lisgar Park will officially be a public park, I thought more about the “front porch” idea here; how the park abuts private space and how this will be contested in terms of use and care. It’s also interesting that Parkinson mentions the ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because now we’re back to normative descriptions, and how these can be so controversial. In a city as multicultural as Toronto, who is to decide what the ‘right’ use to these liminal space is?Multiculturalism ties into my next point: “‘the principle of civil inattention’ or ‘disattendability’, which is the norm that in publicly accessible places people should behave in unobtrusive ways, or least ‘avoid being systematically obtrusive’” . I know we discussed this in a previous meeting, so I won’t dwell on it here suffice to say that as Parkinson points out, this is NOT a universal norm. It also lies at the heart of our social negotiations in public space. In some ways it provides the modus operandi for the triangulation principle that John Danahy mentioned – the third point is needed to overcome our western ingrained civil inattention.Scripts: Parkinson notes that scripts shape many of our encounters with individuals in public spaces. But these scripts aren’t rules. Parkinson says that public space itself, it’s physical character provides much of this scripting. What I’m interested in is how the two interact. What features determine what scripts? To conjecture – wide paths allow me to avoid you. But it must be more complex than this. I wonder who else could give us insights into this line of questioning.Finally, the socially constructed elements of physical space. If I can just read a quote from the book: “This means that even physical space has socially constructed elements, and that public space will necessarily be a topic of political contestation, involving fights over who is the relevant ‘we’ at any given point. Indeed, putting forward claims to be the relevant ‘we’ is often a strategy used to foreclose disputes over access to space and thus who controls the resources – material and cultural – that come with it.” (Parkinson, 2012, p. 61)This idea connects with Leigh Star’s notion of infrastructure as a sociotechnical entity. It is at heart of what we’re exploring in this case – how does the social construct the physical?
- And finally, my questions for discussion.